View full sizeDespite double red flags flying in Gulf Shores, people were in the water in the East Beach area about 5:30 p.m. Monday, June 10, 2013. Lifeguards were seen shortly afterward with lights on warning people about the beach closure. Just five hours earlier a 62-year-old Arkansas man drowned in the same area near the Royal Palms condo, just west of the Gulf State Pier. (Marc D. Anderson/manderson@al.com)

GULF SHORES, Alabama -- Standing before the City Council Monday night, Fire Chief Hartley Brokenshaw spoke dejectedly after witnessing a 24-hour period that saw four lives lost off Baldwin County’s beaches due to strong rip currents.

On Sunday afternoon, three other vacationers died as a result of the swift currents off the Fort Morgan peninsula -- Matthew Hattaway, 25, of Bossier, La.; 50-year-old John Hogue of Overland Park, Kan.; and Joshua Kimbrough, 34, of Bowling Green, Ky. Kimbrough had been missing for more than 24 hours before his body was spotted and recovered Monday night on a sandbar off the peninsula.

Brokenshaw told Mayor Robert Craft and the City Council that he had hoped to report that everything was going well late Monday afternoon after closing the beaches, but just before he was about to get up to speak he was notified of another swimmer in distress.

“I don’t know anymore that we can do,” Brokenshaw said. “We close the beaches and this still happens. ... There’s not an answer. We’ve done and y’all have done everything that can be done to stop this from happening.”

The chief said the same situation arose 15 years ago when the Gulf looked relatively calm, without any white caps, but deadly rip currents claimed the lives of three people in a 30-minute period.

While the warning flag system -- double red, red, yellow and green -- that is used in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and the Gulf State Pier is effective, Brokenshaw said educating visitors about rip currents stands out as the most important step in preventing drowning.

More than 80 percent of water rescues at beaches are due to rip currents, according to national statistics. And more than 100 drownings occur annually in the U.S. Rip currents are fast moving channels of water, usually at a break in the sandbar, that flow out to open water. The currents can be compact or large and pull people out hundreds of yards in some cases.

The biggest threat to swimmers who are caught in a rip current is fear. Most people panic and try to swim straight back to shore when they should be swimming parallel to the shore to get out of the current, which can have speeds as high as eight feet per second, according to a National Weather Service rip current safety guide. If someone is unable to swim parallel to shore he or she should not fight the current and float out until the current dissipates, all the while facing shore and waving arms to get attention.

For someone going out to help a swimmer in distress, they should bring some kind of flotation device so they don't become the victim, which happens more often than not.

From the beach rip currents look like choppy, wishy-washy channels that standout from other areas with a line of foam leading out to open water. It’s a break in the relatively uniform pattern of other areas along the shoreline.

Grant Brown, director of recreation and cultural affairs, said the city continues to keep the public informed of swimming hazards. The city’s Facebook post notifying the public of the double red flags Monday afternoon was seen by more than 6,000 people, he said.

“We’ve done a good job of educating or at least of notifying but you still have people who choose, for whatever reason, to say that ‘it doesn’t apply to me’ and they go out in the water,” Brown said. “At least with the water being closed the proclamation allows the police department to go out there and patrol with our beach patrol ... and tell people, ‘I’m sorry folks it’s too dangerous please get out of the water.’”

Council members questions Brown and Brokenshaw about possible improvements to the notification process such as driving vehicles up and down the beach warning swimmers of the dangers and using more signage, all of which they said was already being done.

Brokenshaw said most of the issues happen in high-density areas around large condos. And even though the rental companies and condos receive the city’s flag notifications and fly the same flags as the city, problems persist.

Councilman Steve Jones said in past years meetings were held with rental management companies and others tourism groups teaching about the dangers of rip currents.

“We handed out the placard that said ‘Break the Grip of the Rip’ and all that was publicized,” Jones said. “I don’t remember the last time that was done. We usually had those annually and it was a great reminder. It kept the awareness level where it needed to be if you will. That may be something we try to institute again.”

With the situation this weekend, Brown said the strong east-to-west current that was fueled by Tropical Storm Andrea last week cut an unusually deep near-shore trough about four feet from the water’s edge.

Brokenshaw said he compares the situation with the dangerous rip currents with that of fires in the dry season. “When the atmospheric conditions get just right the pagers go off for woods fires here, Foley, Robertsdale. It’s like at one time they all go off. And it’s kind of the same way here, when it gets just right that’s when it happens.

“We’ve looked at things and we’re going to keep looking (for solutions). And this same thing is going to happen again. It’s happened before and it’s going to happen again.”

Mayor Robert Craft said if it same situation arises again the city will close the beach.

“It’s not a decision we want to make but we cannot let that happen to guests that are coming here that don’t really understand how severe the risk is,” Craft said. “Although some of the ones I think we rescued were locals the other day. We’d like to think that we live here and we know what to do about it but apparently if you get caught in it it’s really difficult to have the strength to get out of it.”

A half-hour after the council meeting, with hundreds of people lining the beach west of the Gulf State Pier, some were seen swimming and wading in the water in the exact spot where hours earlier the drowning occurred. Soon an ATV with flashing lights weaved among the beachgoers with lifeguards telling people to get out of the water.